I live in an older home with innumerable cracks around windows and doors, and despite all attempts at sealing and caulking, as autumn turns cold there is a pilgrimage of ladybugs and wasps trying to sneak in out of the cold. So it is an annual ritual to spent a couple of weeks vacuuming them out of my basement windows when I get home in the evening.
Wasps, being the physical manifestation of Satan in this dimension, did not take kindly to this affront, and this morning, sought their revenge…
I awoke this morning much like any other Monday (i.e., desperately tired and wishing it were still Sunday), put some tea on to help wake me up, and went to the bathroom to do what bathrooms are often used for… A minute or so after having a seat, out of the corner of my eyes I saw some motion between my legs, and looked down…
A large wasp had crawled out from under the lip of the toilet where it had been hiding, turned to face me, arched its back, and glared at me, his glinty little Satanic eyes full of boiling hatred and murderation.
Wasp (actual size)
As you may expect, there is a certain air of rapidly escalating panic which sets in in situations like this. A moment of extremely urgent soul-searching revealed nothing in my upbringing to help guide me in a moment like this. I mean, in event of nuclear war, every one in 3rd grade and above knows to duck and cover, but that’s not exactly an option in this case…
All I knew was that I didn’t much like the looks of the wasp, the wasp apparently didn’t much like the looks of me either (metaphorically and literally), and I didn’t particularly want to be boldly stung where no Mat has been stung before.
So I did what any grown, mature, rational human being would do in similar circumstances: start screaming like a little girl while throwing washcloths, books, cats, and other nearby objects at it until one well-aimed book knocked the wasp to the ground, and then pummeling it repeatedly with heavy books until the wasp was flatter than Wile. E. Coyote after a good anvil-dropping.
As it turns out, the tea I has started preparing proved unnecessary, as I was quite awake by the time all was said and done…